CONTENTS
Introduction The editors 8
Chapter 1 11
Looking back on his student years in Zurich
Ex Turico aliquid novum (1981) 14
Chapter 2 27
Advocate of the avant-garde in
postwar ciam (1947-1953)
Report concerning the interrelation of the 32
plastic arts (for ciam 6,1947)
Intervention at ciam 6 (1947) 40
Statement against rationalism (1951)
We discover style (1949)
On Brancusi, Sert and Miro (letter to the 46
Giedions, 1948)
On the function of a unesco art review 48
(letter to Giedion, 1950)
On the Dutch contribution (1951) 51
On the Hispano Suiza factory (1951) 53
Lohse and the aesthetic meaning of number (1952)
Aesthetics of Number (1953) 56
Chapter 3 Cobra 59
An Appe(a)l to the Imagination (1950) 62
Constant and the Abstracts (1951) 64
Corneille and the Realists (1951) 68
Corneille versus clocks (1952) 71
Corneille as a landscape painter (1952) 74
Looking back on the Cobra exhibitions I1986) 76
An evening of limbo in the Low Countries (1986) 81
Note on the experience of the elementary in the desert (1951) 85
Building in the Southern Oases (1953) 96 Spatial Colourism (1953) 86
Chapter 4 99
Playgrounds
Child and City (1950) 102
Lost identity, grid for ciam 10, Dubrovnic (1956) 106
When snow falls on cities (1957) 108
After a heavy snowstorm (Student Project, St. Louis, 1961)
Wheels or no wheels, man is essentially a pedestrian (1962)
On the design of play equipment and the arrangement of playgrounds (1962)
Chapter 5
Art and Architecture in the fifties 121
On the cooperation between the arts (1955) 124
On inside and outside space (1956) 126
On garden and landscape art (1957) 128
A tribute to Carola Giedion-Welcker (1957) 131
The ball rebounds (1958) 136
Squares with a smile (1958) 152
The space behind the eye (1958) 159
On the relationship between architecture and art (1959)
Good morning, sculpture (1959) 160
Visser is a winged digger (1961) 162
Hello Shinkichi (i960) 164
Speech for the award of the 1962 Sikkens Prize 169
Chapter 6 179
The beginning of Team 10 and the end of ciam Statement on Habitat (1954)
Letter to the Smithsons on the guideline for ciam 10 (1954)
Orientation, guideline for ciam 10 (1954) 189
Nagele grid for ciam 10 (1956) 194
Postcard to Bakema on the dissolution of Dutch ciam (1957) 198
Talk at the Otterlo Congress (1959) 199
Is architecture going to reconcile basic values? (1961) 202
The moment of realization (1961) 205
Letter to Giedion on the dissolution of ciam (1960) 209
About the Economist project (1961) 212
Chapter 7 215
The new start of Forum: The Story of Another Idea 221
The Story of Another Idea (1959) 273
Chapter 8
Forum 1959-1963: from the shape of the in-between to configurative design 279
The ciam City and the Natural Cycles (1959) 286
Day and Night (1959) 289
Aquarium design by Jan Verhoeven (1960) Between here and there, now and later (1960) 291
'There is a garden in her face' (1960) 293
Interior Art (1961) 295
Dirty linen, mostly (1960) 302
The enigma of time (1961) 310
The medicine of reciprocity tentatively illustrated (1961) 324
The fake client and the great word 'no'(1962)
Steps towards a configurative discipline (1962) 327
Chapter 9
Forum 1962-1963 and 1967: the Vernacular of the Heart 345
The Pueblos (1962) 351
On Rykwert's Idea of a Town (1963) A Miracle of Moderation (1962-1967)
Chapter 10 419
The Problem of Number
Differentiation and unity through rhythm (1960)
On Blom's Noah's Ark (1962)
Discussion on the problem of number at the Royaumont meeting (1962) 425
Letter to the Smithsons after the Royaumont meeting (1962) 440
How to humanize vast plurality? (1963)
Tree and leaf (1965)
'What we are after is a new and as yet unknown configurative discipline' (1966)
On Christopher Alexander's A City is not a Tree (1968) 447
The enigma of vast multiplicity (1968-1969) 448
Who are we building for, and why? (1970) 459
The Priority Jostle (1970) 461
Fascism in a snowflake (1986) 463
Chapter 11 465
Interiorization
The Otterlo Circles (1962) 467
Built Meaning (1962)
Place and Occasion (1962)
Labyrinthian Clarity (1963,1965,1966,1967) 472
The Interior of Time (1962,1966) 474
Two kinds of centrality (1965)
The inner horizon in Wright's Imperial Hotel (1966)
On Frank Lloyd Wright's Imperial Hotel (1968)
The Enigma of Size (1979) 480
Transparency (1982) 494
Chapter 12 499
Contemporary architecture and traditional city 502
Why not a beloved town hall (1961) 508
City centre as donor (1970)
An experiment to counter urban corrosion (1971)
Sociocide (ca. 1971)

The fury of renewal (ca. 1974)
On breaking through monuments (1974)
The mute requirements (1975)
You can't build a thing like that for people! (1981)
Chapter 13 527
Polemics on postmodernism Like that other gift (1976)
A message to Mathias Lingers from a different world (1979)
The Ironbound statement (1979) 533
R.P.P. - Rats, Posts and Other Pests (1981) 537
Symmetry from the bright side (ca. 1984) On Codussi (1984)
The circle and the centre (1987) 552
And just keeping on switching between yesterday and today (1989)
Lured from his den (1998)
Chapter 14 567
On architects and other artists On Le Corbusier (i960,1961 and 1966)
On Loos (1965)
University College in Urbino by Giancarlode Carlo (1966) 575
The Mirror Master - on Joost van Roojen (1967) 582
A propos Jan Rietveld (1971) 586
Jaap Bakema, 1914-1981, "The Moment of Core' (1981) 588
By definition - on Lucien Lafour (1982) 590
Hardy 1918-1983, autumn man between winters (1983) 594
Dylan Thomas (1986) 599 On Van Doesburg, I.K. Bonset and De Stijl (1988) 597
Unearthing the silted-up alphabet of meaningful designing - on Jan Rietveld (1990) 605
On Team 10 (1991) 610
Lucio Fontana apropos Joost van Roojen (1993) 622
On Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1993) 626
On Josep M. Jujol (1996) 634
A Superlative Gift - on Lina Bo Bardi (1997) 637
Chapter 15 643
Retro and Prospect 646 The radiant and the grim,
Kassel Documenta X (1997)
Short biography 650
Principal projects and buildings 654
Writings by Aldo van Eyck 657
Publications on Aldo van Eyck 670
Acknowledgements 686
Editors' notes 688
Illustration credits 726
Text of lecture at indesem seminar 1967, Delft (registered on dvd) 728
Index 738